论文标题

轴恒星的光学镜头:带射射线标准的观测前景

Optical Lensing by Axion Stars: Observational Prospects with Radio Astrometry

论文作者

Prabhu, Anirudh

论文摘要

轴和轴状颗粒(ALP)是一些最佳动机的暗物质(DM)候选者。在某些情况下,早期宇宙中的大型轴突波动可能会崩溃,形成称为轴心团块的密集构型。最密集的轴突团是亚稳态状态,称为oscillons。在本文中,我们提出了一类新的可观察物,以利用轴轴为光子的耦合。由于这种耦合,轴块的起作用就像一种不均匀的折射光学介质 - 一种镜头 - 导致入射电磁波异常分散。电磁波的分散轴是轴结块清楚地将这种镜头效应与重力透镜区分开。通过背景无线电源前方的轴块充当镜头,并导致明显的位置移位,这可能会通过即将到来的正方形公里阵列(SKA)的高精度射线射线统计任务来发现。我们讨论了SKA对各种轴突光环模型中镜头效应的敏感性。尽管重力微透镜调查对以非露露天体物理物体形式存在的DM量放大了强大的限制,但对于质量范围$ [10^{ - 14},10^{ - 11} { - 11}},10^{-11}] M_ \ odot $的对象无法做到这一点。我们发现,在广泛的参数空间中,SKA将对oscillons在质量范围内的光学镜头敏感,而oscillons目前不受微透镜调查的约束。

Axions and axion-like particles (ALPs) are some of the best-motivated dark matter (DM) candidates. Under certain circumstances, large axion fluctuations in the early universe can collapse to form dense configurations called axion clumps. The densest axion clumps are metastable states known as oscillons. In this paper we propose a new class of observables that exploit the axion's coupling to photons. As a result of this coupling an axion clump acts like an inhomogeneous refractive optical medium -- a lens -- that causes anomalous dispersion of incident electromagnetic waves. The dispersion of electromagnetic waves by axion clumps clearly distinguishes this lensing effect from gravitational lensing. Axion clumps passing in front of background radio sources act as lenses and lead to apparent positional shifts that can potentially be discovered by high-precision radio astrometry missions with the forthcoming Square Kilometer Array (SKA). We discuss the sensitivity of SKA to lensing effects in a variety of axion halo models. While gravitational microlensing surveys have placed strong constraints on the amount of DM that exists in the form of non-luminous astrophysical objects they have been unable to do so for objects in the mass range $[10^{-14}, 10^{-11}] M_\odot$. We find that, over a wide range of parameter space, SKA will be sensitive to optical lensing by oscillons in the mass range that is currently unconstrained by microlensing surveys.

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